


He Is Dead

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Second War with Voldemort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-02-07
Packaged: 2018-05-18 21:01:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5942974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus mourns in his own way</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Is Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

_"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone"_

Lupin sat on the moors, in the dark staring into the murk. The book of poetry unheeded in his lap. He didn't need to read the poem, every line of it was seared on his eyes. He couldn't forget a word of it if he tried.

It spoke to the primal within him. It was a raw cry of anguish. Written by someone who knew what loss was. Time had stopped, and silence was what he needed more than anything.

_"Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone"_

Smiling, Remus ran his fingers through his hair and tears dropped from his eyes: Padfoot. When Sirius was Padfoot he was wonderful. Exuberant, wild - a huge black shaggy wagging fool. He got into as much trouble as Padders than he did as Sirius. How they had ever kept it from Dumbledore, Remus still couldn't believe. He'd dug up Hagrid's garden once, and buried two huge bones they had stolen from Hogsmeade. Hagrid had chased him with an axe, but Sirius had simply run rings round him, barking joyfully. He never saw the danger in anything he did.

Like the duel...

_"Silence the pianos and with muffled drum"_

The moors were the place for this. Silence. Fog. Everything muffled. Even the sound of Harry's scream which was ever present in Remus's ears. His lycanthropic eyes seeing the sedge, the blasted trees, the stark landscape. Sirius had loved it here..."It's so YOU Remus." He'd said laughing. "Black and Silver, Fog and moor and hopelessness."

  
_"Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come."_

There had been no coffin. No mourners.

Muggles, Remus knew, had something called closure. Funerals were all about that. People united in grief. Saying goodbye. He had not been able to say goodbye. He had hardly seen it happen. Harry's scream had alerted him, It was only having to hold the boy back, that had stopped him following Sirius through the arch himself.

He thought of the man.

What a funeral he should have had. A glass hearse, drawn by eight black horses with black plumes. The Order, marching behind the coffin. A brass band, playing dolefully. Sirius would have loved it, and would be disgusted he'd not been there. He could imagine him pacing up and down the room, waving his arms and shouting, "It's not bloody fair Moony! The best day out I get in my life, and I'm not paying attention!"

  
_"Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,"_

Harry couldn't accept it. Remus could hardly accept it. Such a life force. So much potential, so much to give. Snuffed out as if he had never been, because he was duelling in the wrong place, and as usual, enjoying himself too much to see the danger.

  
_"Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves."_

Sirius needed a memorial. Something that Remus could say, 'This was done to mark his death' Everyone else was just getting on with their lives. So he'd come here. Where they'd been happy once.

  
_"He was my North, my South, my East and West,"_

My North. He was truly my North.

North was Azkaban, and Remus thoughts had been of Azkaban for 12 long years. Remus had longed for Sirius, his face, his smile, his lips. Wracked by guilt for still loving him, when he truly believed that the man had betrayed the Potters. Hardly able to look Harry in the eyes for the guilt he bore. All his thoughts were driven Northwards, imagining the torment Sirius was suffering, never knowing if he was even still alive.

  
_"My working week and my Sunday rest,"_

After Hogwarts Sirius had lodged with the Potters. Those few brief years between Hogwarts and Voldemort's fall, although fraught with danger and filled with the Order, had held some of the happiest moments in Remus's life. He would race to the house on a Friday night, after longing for Sirius all week.

  
_"My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;"_

They would fall onto Sirius's bed, laughing and kissing, fingers in each other's hair. When they could, and they were sure the Potters weren't about, they would make love all night and all day, talking softly in the sweet hours of the pre-dawn, Sirius holding Remus's head on his chest, stroking his hair, telling him anything, everything, what a wonderful future there was for them all.

Nothing was impossible when Sirius loved you. He carried you with him in the violent current of his joy of living.

  
_"I thought that love would last forever; I was wrong."_

So many years wasted. Lost. Never recovered.

Remus wept bitter tears the day Sirius had gone to Azkaban, and with secret traitorous joy the day he found he had escaped. Sirius's return to Grimmauld Place was an answer to a prayer and Remus spent every second that he could be spared, there with him. He found his lover markedly changed, subject to fits of such dark despair that Remus could hardly reach him. His love of life torn from him, transmuted into bravado and a rebellious dark passion to do something physical to help the Order.

Remus found himself being the stronger of the two, holding Sirius; shaking in the night, while he stroked his head and soothed him. They never spoke of the Dementors. Now it was Remus who told Sirius of all the things they would do, when this was over, and Voldemort beaten.

I thought that love would last forever. I was wrong.

  
_"The stars are not wanted now: put out every one; Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;"_

Pack the sun, thought Remus. But not the moon. Our moon. It was the moon that had brought them together.

  
_"Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood,"_

So he'd come here, where they had come one wet summer together before James' and Lily's wedding. They'd rented a small cottage, and had deliberately timed it with the full moon. At night they would gallop on the moors together, Padfoot keeping the wolf in check, as he always did.

  
_"For nothing now can ever come to any good."_

Nothing can.

Back here. Fog and Hopelessness, as Sirius had said.

Voldemort is back and we have lost the best of us.

The last of us. I am the last of us. How can I go on alone, Padfoot?

Remus put the book on the ground

Bye Sirius.

I love you, Padders.

And the moon came up. The landscape shone black and silver, etched onto the horizon.

There was a howl that would make the small hairs on your neck stand up, would have melted the gizzards of anyone who might have been around to hear.

And Moony, crouched and ferocious, with tears on his muzzle, sprang forward into the foggy night.

Fin


End file.
